Should you work while in college?
1. Optimize your time. Should you really spend all of that time on Facebook?
2. Look out for great work opportunities on & off campus. Jobs ranging from teaching assistant to bartender can earn you a decent income.
3. Prioritize your activities. If you have exams work less hours, if you got a break work more hours, simple.
4. Reward yourself. It’s alright to have some fun.
5. Bigger picture thinking. Visualize graduating from college with no debt.
After the article went live it received some thought provoking comments and emails, so after a while I couldn’t help but write a second guest post- Create your own work study program & balance school/work. Since the article just came out yesterday I would love to have all of you guys check it out and share your thoughts.
I want to use today as an opportunity to share those two great articles with everyone and to add some additional thoughts on the whole earning an income while in college discussion.
Keep it simple. One thing that I’m constantly working on is the elimination of meaningless tasks from my life. No longer do I care who the points leader in hockey is nor do I care which free agent was signed today. I try to focus only on important tasks and one’s that improve the quality of my life (such as school or spending time with my girlfriend).
The trick is keep all of the things in life that make you happy but to remove the activities that simply consume time. Spending time with family & friends is important but do you really need to keep up on celebrity gossip?
Enjoy the opportunity of working a random job. Once you graduate from college the pressure is on to to move up in your field. While you’re in college it’s usually pretty difficult to find a job in your field of study. This is why college is an excellent opportunity to try a job in a completely different field.
Some readers have wrote about random jobs that they tried in college, anywhere from bus driver to serving drinks. The best part is that you have an excellent opportunity to network with all sorts of different people. A good friend of mine from college recently landed a job at a bank due to the networking he did while working as a barista at Starbucks. He took the time to speak with every client that came in for coffee and he managed to build some solid relationships with people.
The discussion definitely does NOT end here, but the article does. I will write about this topic more in the future but for now I look forward to reading some of your thoughts on working full time/earning an income while studying in college.